don't waste your time

Cultivating good study skills is a very personal process, especially because different kinds of content calls for different techniques. You will have to try a mix of things until you find something that works for you but these tips below will definitely steer you in the proper direction.

1. Review your notes within 12 hours of getting out of class.

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Go Over Your Notes. TODAY.

This is probably the best tip out of the entire article because of how effective it is. When you get out of class, in just 24 hours you will forget up to 80% of the details even if you understood everything just fine during the lecture. However, if you review your notes later that day, the information will be stored in your long term memory!

When you go over your notes, circle/highlight/underline all things you don’t fully understand. Find the answers to these questions until you figure out everything completely before closing the books. When it comes time to study for the test, everything will be more like a review rather than something you have to learn from scratch all over again. This saves you time, reduces your stress, increases your confidence to ace the exam.

2. The importance of finding a place free of distractions.

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Find a quiet place to study that’s not full of distractions. If your home or family is full of crazy, then get out of there. Study in your car. Study on the lawn. Study at the beach. Study in the library. Whatever works for you, go there, and study everyday. If you enjoy people-watching (I know I do!), be honest with yourself and don’t choose a busy place. There’s a reason why classrooms don’t have large windows, or if they do they are often covered up with blinds.

The reasoning: When I walk into the door of a classroom or library, my brain automatically goes into work mode. When I walk in my bedroom, my mind knows this is a place of relaxation, leisure and sleeping. This is the same idea as reserving your bed only for sleep and sex so your mind associates your bed with only those things. If you eat, sleep, and study all in the same place, then it’s very difficult to stay focused, and that’s not even taking into account the potential distractions from roommates or family members!

3. How to avoid falling asleep while starting to read something.

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First of all your posture is very important. If you go and lie down on a couch to read a book, is it any mystery why you feel sleepy instantly? You’re lying on a couch!

Sit up properly in a chair and read on a table. Or even just stand. Anything but slouching or using lazy-structures.

As you read, immediately start to highlight, underline or circle keywords to keep your mind active.

If you have very intense reading to do, like a law or medical student, go the extra step and write, rewrite, and summarize each paragraph in the margins. The very process of rewording something helps you understand the idea. For words that are a mouthful, like “staphylococcus” or “the depolarization of the membrane potential,” don’t just read over them! (We often automatically skim over words that intimidate us.) Say them out-loud to help you know how to say them rather than fear them.

4. How to deal with music while studying.

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I used to think music helped me study, but all it did was provide a distraction for me to skip tracks or look for new music. Get some ear plugs to reduce the auditory distractions. They work really, really, really well.

If you need music, find something you can listen to, but not be distracted by. Vocals will often detract from what you are trying to read so go for ambient or instrumental music. If you’re into electronic music, I recommend deepmix radio, but like I said earlier, it might be better you don’t listen to music at all.

5. How to memorize like a MACHINE.

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ROY G BIV FOR LIFE.

Flashcards are incredibly good at helping you memorize. Just go buy stacks of index cards and start filling them out with definitions, words, chemical names, formulas, anything you need no matter how simple or detailed! They work really well because you are essentially testing yourself while you use them and it will raise your confidence level.

Protip: Create electronic flash cards on www.Quizlet.com and then, using one of the hundreds of flashcard apps available on your smart phone, you can download the flashcards from the Quizlet database. Simply search for them by “creator” name which would be your login name. This way, you could simply download and study your flashcards onto your phone. (On test days I will purposely take the bus instead of car or bicycle so that I could be on my merry-way, testing myself with the flashcards on the phone while the bus drivers takes me.)

Use mnemonics to help remember lists. The most common mnemonic is to take the first letter of each list item and make an acronym, sentence or name out of it. For example, Roy G Biv is commonly used to memorize the order of the seven colors of the rainbow. But often times acronyms aren’t going to work , so what do you do? YOU GOTTA GET CREATIVE!!! For example, how do you remember that the tarsal bones are in your foot (as opposed to the carpal bones being in your hand)? Because you get TAR on your SOLES! See what I mean?

6. Get a grip on procrastination.

The idea here is to give yourself short breaks so you don’t burn out. You don’t have to study for 3 hours non stop. And guess what? IT WORKS.

I personally like to use the site to set the study time to 15-20 minutes of study and 2 minutes of rest to stand up, fix my posture, walk around or do a simple yoga stretch. The site will keep you in check and chime to get your ass back to the notes.

7. Always have water and some food with you.

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I don’t know what it is about studying, maybe it’s because the brain is 90% water, but I’m always drinking water when I’m doing it. In addition to drinking water more often, bring some food so that you could keep going when you get hungry. Note that I said WHEN you get hungry, not IF you get hungry, because you WILL get hungry. If you go on for too long without food while studying vigorously, studying may become more difficult than it needs to be. AND YOU KNOW, IT’S GOING TO BE JUST ANOTHER EXCUSE TO GO GET FOOD.

8. Get the phone number from at least TWO people in your class.

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Not only will you hear the material from a new light in a study group, but they’ll let you know if you’re falling asleep!

This is very simply so that if you can’t attend class, you could ask someone what you missed for that day. The reason I say at least two is because if you get only one persons number and that person happens to be an idiot, then you have someone else that could help you. I often will ask text both of them.

If you have trouble talking to strangers, asking someone for their number in case you can’t make it to class is a pretty easy ice breaker in itself. They often don’t have anybody else to contact either, so it’s a win-win situation for the both of you. JUST DO IT.

While we’re on the topic of other people I’d like to add that studying in little groups is a great help as well. Surround yourself with people who are in similar situations and have high goals. It may take some effort to find a time and place (read: the library!) that works for everyone but it’s usually well worth it.

9. The insane stress of cramming.

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If you are studying on the day of the exam you will notice that you will feel like you are not catching up no matter how much you go over. As testing time gets closer on that day, you will get more and more stressed out (sympathetic nervous system running amock!). The amount of anxiety and stress from cramming, even when you are quite prepared, is astounding.

Something I learned from my brother is to not leave the school library until you finish all your reading and homework for the following day. Stay in the library as long as you have to so that when you go home, you are FREE. (This ties in nicely with #2!)

10. ALL THIS MEANS NOTHING IF YOU DON’T FOCUS.

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There’s nothing more messed up with the young generation than their short attention span due to the flurry of distractions everywhere. People thought things got bad when TV came about but apparently that’s nothing compared to the Internet and cell phones. It’s up to you to improve upon yourself and deal with it because these things aren’t going to disappear!

You NEED to focus. You MUST focus. That means when it’s time to study, you have to do that and only that. You’re not going to get anywhere if you study for five minutes then go on Facebook and then go back to studying.

I also wrote an article on the importance of doing just ONE thing at a time. Even though it feels like we’re being more efficient when we are juggling many tasks at once, working in a scattered way makes it difficult to stay on track and you may end the day with many things started and nothing completed.

That’s it! Now go and study!

Set aside some study time and get to it! Also, PLEASE remember to get your sleep! Your study time won’t be worth much if you’re tired all the time. Even if you feel okay on just 5-6 hours of sleep, you may not realize that you’re operating at just 70% of your full abilities for weeks on end (or worse, the entire year)! Don’t kid yourself, only 1-3% of the population has the gene that allows you to get away with 6 hours of sleep and TRULY be completely recovered. THE REST OF US (97-99%) NEED 7-9 HOURS OF SLEEP TO OPERATE AT 100%.

Anyway, I hope that provided some value to you. If you have any more tips that work for you, please feel free to share it with us below! And be sure to share this with your peers! They will appreciate you post this rather than some mundane BS about some BS. 😀

Several years ago, I was at my best friend’s house, hanging out and having good conversations like usual, when I noticed it was past midnight and time for me to get going. As I started walking out, my friend’s father came downstairs to say goodbye. He was telling me to take care of myself and as we finished our goodbye-hug, he looked into my eyes, his demeanor turned serious, like a father about to tell a son a morsel of advice, and he said, “Anto, enjoy these years in college. Enjoy them because you will never have these years again. You will never be this age again.”

With age comes strength and wisdom.

Once that was said, a whirlwind of thoughts flew through my mind. I realized I will never be 20 years old ever again and that these first years in college are very unique. I realized there’s something awesome about going to house parties and drinking and not knowing any better. I realized that those road trips we’d take out of town to visit our friends from high school, now in their own dorms/apartments were very memorable because we had not drifted apart on our own pathways yet. I felt like there was something very special about being young and naive because the passing of time transforms us whether we like it or not.

As I’m writing this, I’m 27 years old and time does feel like it’s going faster than ever before but that doesn’t bother me. Thanks to those precious words, and the realizations that followed, I’ve learned to revel in my current age and see the beauty in the learning process. I believe the trick is to keep things new, keep things fresh and eternally keep pushing your comfort zone to learn new things and continue to grow as a person. Life is going to be beautiful when I’m 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, 90, 100 and so forth! Each decade will be full of its own lessons, challenges and fresh opportunities to grow more than ever… and I like that.

Thanks to the Inter­net, we are con­stantly inter­con­nected to each other and our means of com­mu­ni­ca­tion, among other things, is pretty solid. Inter­est­ingly enough, just because com­put­ers and phones have made life a lot more effi­cient, it doesn’t mean I have less to do whatsoever.

For me, it means I could do a lot more with my time. And the amount of stuff to do is essen­tially end­less. There is no ‘off but­ton’ to life and I embrace that. The amount of stuff to do will never end. We can’t just sit still for very long, there’s always some­thing; we’ve got lad­ders to climb, peo­ple to see, high­est selves to ful­fill, and so forth.

Sometimes we make lists to help us out.

Think about the times you used a shop­ping list. Didn’t that make things much easier?

Instead of casu­ally brows­ing the store aisles, if you have a list, you know what you want so you walk with pur­pose. If you get dis­tracted, all you have to do is to look back at the list.

Life’s To Do List

So why make a list only when it’s time to go shop­ping? What about mak­ing the rest of your life as easy as that?

Our lives are full of poten­tial and how will they ever be real­ized if we don’t jot down those awe­some things we have to do? You don’t have to be the stereo­typ­i­cal “busy busi­ness­man” to use a to-do list, plan­ner or calendar.

The same way you would walk with pur­pose through the super mar­ket, you could walk with deter­mi­na­tion and pur­pose through­out the whole of your life, mak­ing you much more pro­duc­tive and full of gratification.

How to start a to-do-list for LIFE (work, school, hobbies, etc!)

There is no best-way to go about doing these things since we are all dif­fer­ent and there’s a mil­lion ways to do this, but there are sev­eral tips I could share to guide you.

1. Choose your medium and keep it simple.

Prefer­ably, choose some­thing you could take with you all the time and add to on the fly. I take advan­tage of the fact that I always have my phone with me and use my iPhone’s basic Notes pro­gram to main­tain a list. Be wary of fancy apps or com­plex sys­tems as they may eas­ily take up more time to man­age and main­tain than is necessary.

If you don’t have a smart­phone, go back to the basics and have a pen and paper with you. Some­times there’s noth­ing bet­ter than jot­ting down tasks on paper and adding ideas as things pop into your mind through­out the day.

2. Keep your list visible or always on you!If you put away your to-do-list, you will prob­a­bly for­get about it.

If you decide to use your com­puter to main­tain a list, keep the list open all the time. Pur­posely place a short­cut on your desk­top, start menu, on the quick launch (or pinned to your taskbar in Win­dows 7) and keep the file open… get the idea? You keep your web browser open for count­less hours at a time, so why not sim­ply keep your to-do list open all the time as well? In other words, I’m telling you to prac­tice the oppo­site of “out of sight, out of mind!”

3. Split your list into two sections: High priority and normal priority.

High priority items are things you want to get done urgently or today.

Nor­mal pri­or­ity items are every­thing else. Through­out the day, I often remem­ber new things I want to do and get fresh ideas and I will imme­di­ately whip out my phone and add it into the list. Some­times I’ll have a third sec­tion at the end which are super ran­dom but fun things such as “Find a tree to climb, go horse­back rid­ing, roller blade, etc”.

4. Do the most frightening or challenging task on your list FIRST.

Due to subconscious-self-sabotage, you will want to put off the hardest (or most frightening) task off until later (or forever). If you get that done first, you will not only feel great about yourself but the rest of your day will feel like a breeze.

“A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step” – Lao Tzu

Just remember that with baby steps, anything is possible. If a task seems too daunting or overwhelming, break it down into smaller steps so that it becomes a lot easier to deal with. Once you build up some momentum, the inertia will carry you throughout the day and everything gets pretty awesome once you get in the zone.

It feels great to get things done in an efficient manner and there’s no reason to stress when a simple list can keep us on track and prevent us from feeling scatter brained. I would love to hear any tidbits you got that help keep your life organized since we all have our own perspective on things and can teach and learn from each other to lift each other up. 🙂

A few months ago my father and I were sitting outside of a nice cafe under the shade having some coffee when he told me this analogy in regards to mental focus. I’ll try to convey the initial story and then build up on it.

Think about the power of sunlight.

When you put your hand under the sun, it feels nice and warm but nothing really happens. However, if you use a little magnifying glass and focus the light, it gets concentrated and now that same sunlight can burn your hand almost instantly. The concentration is so powerful it could even start a fire!

The same goes for your mental focus and concentration. Your attention span is precious and distractions are everywhere that keep your focus diffused and weak. You really need to hone in on what it is you’re doing to be effective. Focus is what’s necessary to make full use of your power.

Set a count-down timer for an hour and focus intently.

Who knows what beautiful creations you can create when you focus intently?

An easy way to increase your productivity is to work in sprints. Don’t try to run a marathon all day as that’s not very realistic, or healthy in this case.

Instead, take the role of the sprinter and charge through your work with great intensity one hour at a time without any distractions. You’ll be able to get incredible amounts of work done and your productivity will skyrocket the same way a magnifying glass amplifies sunlight.

If you check your favorite websites sporadically in between your work, your focus will constantly be diffused and it will take you (infinitely) longer to finish your work.

Remove the distractions; Practice “information fasting.”

Other than striving for super-productivity one hour at a time, setup an environment that fosters your attention:

Keep your desk clean and clutter free. Your brain is constantly processing information through its senses and determining what is important and what is not. If your desk is visually distracting, that external chaos will hinder your ability to focus.

“Out of sight, out of mind” is a very useful phrase to remember. When you need to focus on your work, put your phone on silent and throw it in a drawer or somewhere out of sight. If e-mail gets pushed to your phone, set it up so that you have to manually retrieve it instead of it constantly notifying you of useless things. If other unnecessary notifications are constantly forwarded to your phone, maybe it’s time to adjust those settings.

If you need to research on the Internet, use the technology more intentionally and with unwavering purpose. If you don’t need the Internet, physically disconnect the Ethernet cable or temporarily disable your wireless connection. When you unconsciously go to your favorite website and see the “Server Not Found” message you will be pretty shocked and will be forced to go right back to your work.

Subconscious-sabotage is real.

You know when you have a big test to study for but you’re procrastinating endlessly? Isn’t it interesting how you’ll magically become very creative at finding anything and everything to do that doesn’t involve studying for that test?

What about when you’re in the middle of something important and you impulsively open a new tab and load Facebook as if you were on auto pilot? Or maybe you decide to randomly get up and check if there’s anything new in the fridge for the fifth time?

These are all examples of things that purposely create delay in your work. They tend to happen automatically (and seamlessly) when you get to the “hard part” of your task. This is what’s known as subconscious-self-sabotage.

Your subconscious is often driven out of fear and wants you to stay in its comfort zone where everything feels safe and easy. Sometimes you may be so good at sabotaging yourself that you may completely abandon entire projects without realizing after weeks have gone by!

Please be aware of these habits because they are very subtle and easy to give into. Subconscious self sabotage is as real as the food you will eat in your next meal. Once you become self-aware of your habits you can gain control and grow faster than ever.

I hope this info helps some of you out there. It’s very important that we cultivate our willpower one solid-hour at a time and remove the distractions that fracture our attention. Smartphones, social media networks, and the Internet are only going to be more integrated within our lives so it’s probably best that we get a grip on these things before they cause us to waste too much time. I give a special thanks to my father for providing the analogy of the magnifying glass and jump-starting (or should I say, fire-starting) the subsequent ideas in my head.

What are some things you do to deal with distractions? What are some things you do to increase your focus?

I’d like to point out a few details that may be obvious, but it’s imperative that we are well aware of them. I hope this will inspire and jump-start your personal evolution to help you flow to the best of your ability.

“Life begins at the end of your comfort zone.” Neale Donald Walsch

Change is the only constant.Heraclitus said it in many ways: nothing endures but change; Everything flows, nothing stands still; the only constant is change.The same way the universe is constantly changing, constantly transforming chaos into order, our living cells are always trying to maintain equilibrium and if they cannot, they die and are broken apart, recycled and flushed. Our bodies are refreshing, replacing and regenerating themselves in many ways, all the time. I’ve always applied this constantly-changing motif to our biological processes since there are millions of things happening simultaneously in our bodies all the time. However, it’s even more important that we apply this concept to our personal development and self-education to reach our goals and dreams.

Like a plant, you’re either growing or dying.When I was 20 years old, I was at a Millionaire Mind seminar and the main speaker, T. Harv Ecker told us, “Isn’t it interesting how a plant seems like it’s either growing or dying? Just like a plant, you’re either growing or dying as well.”

The statement that we’re all either growing or dying is very dramatic and while cellular processes are more complicated than that, it is very true in the long-term. Our mind, body and spirit are constantly adjusting to everything we’re experiencing. Every time we reach a new level of skill in something, that automatically becomes the new norm. Conversely, when we stop learning, exercising or practicing, given enough time, we simply fall behind.

There is no such thing as maintaining in the long-term.
In a universe of change, you have no choice but to succumb to it. Since change is the only thing that’s happening all the time, if you don’t try to ramp yourself up to a new level, you’re going to regress. If you’re not going forward, you’re going backwards. Something must be changing one way or another. If you’re just trying to maintain, then you’re going backwards. Maintaining is a passive form of regression.

As far as your physical health goes, your body is literally a sculpture in constant progress. If you are exercising regularly but do not vary your workout routine, your body will adapt and go on cruise control. Bodybuilders and athletes are very aware of this exercise plateau. They have to constantly switch up their routines and attack their muscles in different ways to surprise the body and force it to adapt to new levels. If you don’t exercise at all, then your muscles and bones will invariably get weaker. If you don’t give them any reason to grow, then they will waste away.

However, atrophy is not limited to body parts. The same goes for your mind and spirit. If you have a job and you’ve learned everything there is to learn in that position, then eventually you’re just maintaining that current position. How long will it take before you become a zombie to the routine? If you get sick and tired of a job, you’re probably sick and tired of maintaining that position. You need to find a way to grow otherwise it becomes a waste of time and your spirit will want nothing more than to break up the monotony.

” If we aim for some middle ground or status quo, it’s an illusion—beneath the surface what’s actually happening is we’re dying, not growing. “ Robert K. Cooper

Stand at the edge of your comfort zone.

It is quite the challenge to exert oneself to new levels at all times. It’s definitely trying on my soul but it’s the only challenge worth accepting (considering the alternative). Research biologist Albert Szent-Gyoergyi, who was twice awarded the Nobel Prize, called this syntropy, a kind of negative entropy which he defined as the “innate drive in living matter to perfect itself.”

For example, starting this blog is very challenging to me in a lot of fresh ways. When I create a weather video, it’s generally kind of exciting because I’m not used to being videotaped and talking to an audience. Pushing myself to new boundaries helps me grow and it makes me feel alive. I can feel the excitement in my heart. I could feel my brain working in new ways. Creating new content, such as this article, is pushing my comfort zone because I’m literally putting my name and image out there directly in front of everyone.

Even if the status quo you’re surrounded with is very prestigious, like say, you’re a professor at an Ivy league school for decades and you’re credited with many discoveries, that is the norm for you and you can easily branch out and push yourself in new ways from that position.

Embrace change with baby steps.

Embrace the fact that you can instantly turn things around for your benefit. All it takes are baby steps. With baby steps you can get anywhere and do anything. It just takes the smallest effort to create a long-term, progressively oriented action. Strive for development and cultivate who you really are and who you want to be. When you get those moments of inspiration, write them down (or type them in your phone) immediately. You never know when those fleeting moments of brilliance will come back.

You will never be the age you are now ever again, so you might as well take advantage of your limited time here on Earth. Don’t just wait around for something to happen because waiting will kill your precious time. There is a grand version of you that is so great the universe doesn’t even know what to expect. You know that deep inside. Every once in a while, maybe in your dreams or while you’re daydreaming, you’ll see a glimpse of your dreams turned real; an image of yourself so grand and exquisite that you wonder how you’ll ever get there (read: baby steps).

You can have unparalleled control of your health, education, career and relationships if you embrace change. Allow your life to have a healthy theme of progression built-in to it and everything will flow effortlessly. Don’t be stagnant! Stagnation leads to missed opportunities, a waste of time, and unrealized dreams. Meet your own expectations and attack your goals with great passion to continually build yourself anew.

I’m really glad I have finally shared this info and I hope this provides some inspiration to truly be who you want to be and achieve those long-term oriented goals. I would love to hear what you have to say and add to this. Please leave your comments below and thank you for reading!

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